Fudzilla has uncovered a new roadmap which shows Intel's plans beyond Broadwell in the notebook market space.

Despite being 14nm and the fact that Broadwell-U which is under the bonnet of most of the notebooks only just started shipping, Intel is planning another big announcement before the end of the year.

It is back to the tick-tock strategy, with Skylake as the tock. It is the new architecture based on the 14nm manufacturing process. Haswell and Broadwell are tick which means that they are the die shrink. Skylake is the new architecture based on 14nm manufacturing process and of course Intel introduces all kinds of optimisations to the core.

The company is commited to bring the Skylake in 2016 but we now have a more precise time-frame . Intel plans to launch a few Skylake-U 15W TDP Core i7 and Core i5 with more to come in Q1 2016. Most of Skylake-U 28W processors will arrive in Q1 2016.

Intel plans to refresh the Core M line of processors with four new Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) with Y-Processor like grade Skylake. The 14nm Skylake processor processor should have some significant power optimisations enabling significantly longer battery life and enabling the wireless charging possible.

Intel promises that the Skylake mobile platform can help you get rid of the charging cables as it includes wireless charging, at least for some units. .

Skylake-H will bring the four core SKU on the market starting with Q4 2015 and continuing with more units in Q1 2016 and onwards. This was the plan all along and we have reported back in the summer of 2014 that Skylake is scheduled for the later part of 2015.

It is unclear when the Cannonlake 10nm successor comes to market. We can expect it at the earliest at later part of 2016 but Intel didn’t share many information about this chip.

Earlier last month Nvidia has unveiled the mighty GM204 GPU at its Game24 event and this GPU, as well as the Geforce GTX 980 and the GTX 970 graphics cards based on the new part, became a rather big thorn in AMD's eye, especially due to Maxwell's performance per watt. Efficiency is quite impressive considering the GPU is still based on the 28nm manufacturing process. In less than month, Nvidia has unleashed the same GPU on the mobile market, as the GTX 980M and the GTX 970M.

What probably comes as the biggest surprise when it comes to new mobile Maxwell 2.0 GPUs is the fact that this is probably the least cut-down mobile GPU when compared to the desktop counterparts. For example, mobile Fermi GPUs offered around 40 percent of performance compared to their desktop counterparts, and Kepler raised the bar to around 60 percent. Despite their same name, mobile GPUs are always way below their desktop counterparts for obvious reasons, and while that might happened before, the new Maxwell 2.0 changes everything and closes the relative performance gap placing the performance of the mobile GTX 980M at around 80 percent of the GTX 980. The GTX 970M is a bit of a different story, as comparing those specifications suggest that we might be looking at around 60 to 70 percent performance compared to the desktop counterpart, the GTX 970.

Expectedly, the 28nm GM204 GPU based GTX 980M has 1536 CUDA cores and works at 1038MHz for the GPU base clock and while the Boost GPU clock is unknown, the impressive base clock suggest that it packs quite a punch. The GTX 980M still retained the 256-bit memory interface which will be paired up with 4GB or 8GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5.0GHz. The GTX 970M on the other hand packs 1280 CUDA cores, 924MHz base GPU clock and comes with either 3GB or 6GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5.0GHz and paired up with a 192-bit memory interface. Unfortunately, Nvidia did not reveal any details regarding the TDP of these two new mobile Maxwell 2.0 GPUs.

According to Nvidia, the GTX 980M has double the performance of the GTX 680M and will bring gaming at "beyond 1080p" on notebooks.

The mobile GM204 Maxwell will also bring all the features seen with the desktop counterparts, including the VXGI, FXAA, DSR, DirectX 12 support and Nvidia GameWorks, but also some features that are mobile related, like the well known graphics-switching Optimus Technology as well as the new BateryBoost technology. While it did not reveal any specific details, Nvidia did note that the new BatteryBoost will set a maximum frame rate from 30 to 60FPS, thus pushing all the system components at peak efficiency.

According to Nvidia, there should be over a dozen SKUs already available with the Geforce GTX 980M and GTX 970M including MSI's GT72, GS70 and GS60 models, Asus' G751, Gigabyte's Aurus X7 and P35 models while system integrators like AVADirect, MainGear and OriginPC should also have these new GPUs available as an option.

MSI has announced the availability of two new members of its Ghost and Stealth line of gaming notebooks, the GS60 Ghost PRO 3K and the GS70 Stealth Pro gaming notebooks.

The two new Ghost and Stealth notebooks feature a new sleek and slim design as well as some updates to the hardware including a 3K 15-inch display on the GS60 Ghost Pro 3K, Super RAID storage technology and Geforce GTX 870M graphics card.

All four SKUs from the Stealth and Ghost lineup, which should already be available, at least in the US, pack the same Intel 4th generation Core i7-4700HQ CPU and the same Intel HM87 chipset. All four SKUs also share some other hardware features including 16GB of DDR3L 1600MHz memory, Killer E2200 LAN with Bluetooth 4.0, Intel's 7260 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi, SD card reader, Dynaudio speakers with subwoofer, couple of USB 3.0 ports, HDMI output, 720p front camera, 6-cell 120W battery and SteelSeries full color backlit keyboard.

The GS70 Stealth Pro SKUs feature a 17.3-inch 1920x1080p resolution screen and pack Nvidia Geforce GTX 970M 6GB graphics card as well as two options with Super RAID, either with three 128GB SSDs in RAID 0 paired up with 1TB HDD or two 128GB SSDs with same 1TB HDD. The MSI GS60 Ghost Pro SKUs on the other hand come with 15.6-inch WQHD+ 3K 2880x1620 screen and Nvidia GTX 870M 3GB GDDR5 graphics card. This one also has two storage options, either with Super RAID with two 128GB SSDs in RAID 0 and 1TB HDD or wiht single 128GB SSD paired up with 1TB HDD.

All four SKUs also share a rather steep price tag, so you either pay US $1,999 or US $2,099 depending on which storage option you decide to go for.

MSI has announced and revealed some details regarding its 2014 lineup for CES, scheduled to kick off on January 7th in Las Vegas. The new lineup includes the next-generation GT, GE and GX gaming notebooks, Quadro workstations for mobile professionals, tablets, a brand new 24-inch All-In-One Gaming PC, the recently released 3K GT60 notebook as well as bunch of motherboards and graphics cards launched earlier.

Earlier this month, MSI unveiled the new 3K GT60 with a WQHD+ 3K display. Marketed as a true and quite impressive gaming notebook/workstation, it will surely be the star of MSI's CES lineup. In addition to the 3K GT60, MSI will also show their new AMD Kabini based W20 tablet as well as the AMD-based S12T touchscreen notebook.

MSI also anounced that it will also showcase the GS70, a world's lightest and thinest 17-inch gaming notebook, the new AG2712A All-In-One Gaming PC which feature AMD Radeon HD 8970M/R9 M290x discrete graphics as well as MSI's exclusive "Flicker-Free" and Blue Light Control display, as well as a wide list of motherboard and graphics cards including the recently released Z87I GAMING AC and its companion GTX 760 GAMING ITX.

Our team will be at CES 2014 in Las Vegas and we will surely check out MSI's lineup.

The PC slump seems to be getting even worse. Digitimes Research found that the top five notebook brands suffered a 20 percent shipment drop in April.

The top ODMs experienced a drop of 14 percent and it seems vendors are preparing to transition to new models, so they are trying to cut inventory from March.

HP, Acer and Lenovo are said to have experienced a drop in excess of 20 percent. All other vendors underperformed as well. It is expected that Q2 notebook shipments will be down 15 percent year-on-year.

All Taiwan-based ODMs saw their shipments drop by double digits in April.

Nvidia has officially announced five new mobile GPUs that will be a part of the Geforce 700M series. All five new GPUs will feature Nvidia GPU Boost 2.0, Optimus and Nvidia Geforce Experience technologies.

The new lineup of Geforce 700M mobile GPU series will now include Geforce GT 750M, GT 745M and Geforce GT 740M as a part of the performance segment as well as the Geforce GT 735M and the Geforce GT 720M for the mainstream segment.

Unfortunately, Nvidia's did not list any precise specifications on its website but Anandtech.com managed to dig out some info. According to Anand, the Geforce GT 750 is either based on 28nm GK107 or GK106, features 384 CUDA cores, works at 967MHz GPU clock plus Boost and features up to 2GB of GDDR5/DDR3 memory clocked at up to 5.0GHz and paired up with a 128-bit memory interface.

The GT 745M and the GT 740M are pretty much the same as both are based on the 28nm GK107 GPU with 384 CUDA cores. Both can be equipped with up to 2GB of GDDR5/DDR3 memory clocked at up to 5.0GHz and paired up with a 128-bit memory interface. The Geforce GT 745M works at up to 837MHz plus Boost for the GPU while the Geforce GT 740M works at up to 980MHz plus Boost. It is not clear how GT 740M ends up clocked higher than the GT 745M but it might have something to do with the maximum Boost.

The mainstream lineup includes the Geforce GT 735M and the Geforce 720M, as well as two other GPUs that Nvidia did not mention officially, the Geforce GT 730M and the Geforce 710M. The Geforce GT 735M and the Geforce GT 730M are both based on the 28n GK208 GPU, feature 384 CUDA cores and have an effective memory clock of 2GHz. Both come with up to 2GB of DDR3 memory paired up with a 64-bit memory interface. The Geforce GT 735M works at up 889MHz plus Boost while the GT 730M works at up to 719MHz plust Boost.

The Geforce GT 720M and the Geforce 710M are both based on 28nm Fermi GPU and feature 96 CUDA cores. They both feature up to 2GB of DDR3 memory paired up with a 64-bit memory interface. The Geforce GT 720M works at 938MHz plus Boost for the GPU while memory ended up at up to 2GHz. The Geforce 710M works at up to 800MHz plus Boost for the GPU while memory will be clocked at up to 1.8GHz.

Nvidia revealed a neat slide that puts the most of its new lineup against Intel's HD 4000 IGP. Nvidia also claims that its new Geforce 700M series paired up with Geforce Experience can be used to play ten top 2012 games at optimal settings.

The availability is most likely expected once Intel launches its Haswell CPUs which is expected sometimes later in Q2 2013.

Futuremark has announced 3DMark for Windows 8. The new benchmark tool is expected to be released next year and will measure performance of all Windows 8 devices including tablets, notebooks and high-end desktop gaming systems.

The new 3DMark for Windows 8, as Futuremark is currently calling it, will support both x86 and ARM-based devices and will feature stunning real-time scenes that will stress test all levels of hardware. It will measure and compare gaming performance on all Windows 8 devices and it will be usable in both Metro UI and standard Windows environments.

Jukka Mäkinen, CEO of Futuremark, noted that due to wide range of devices for Windows 8 it will be hard to work out which devices offer the best value for money, or bang for buck as we like to call it, but fortunately, 3DMark for Windows 8 will able to accurately measure and compare gaming performance across all devices and graphical feature sets available with Windows 8.

The 3DMark for Windows is developed in co-operation with the world's leading technology companies and, as noted, it is currently in developement and excpected to be released in 2012.

Rene Haas, general manager of Nvidia’s notebook division, was kind enough to offer us a cup of Starbuck’s coffee at Nvidia’s headquarters, and talk about some of the company’s mobile plans.

He was energized with the success of his group, as Nvidia got more than 200 design wins on Intel’s Sandy Bridge platform. Last time we met Rene, almost a year to the day, he mentioned external graphics and hinted that Nvidia might go down that road, a road less travelled.

He didn’t mention much more than that, he merely said that Nvidia was still working on it, so stay tuned for an update. Thunderbolt connectivity was mentioned in the conversation, giving us the impression that this might the connection of a choice, but this was not confirmed by Nvidia’s mobile boss.

We got a feeling that we might see this external graphics materializing in 2012 and with 28nm Nvidia mobile chips, but this is not something we got confirmed or denied at this time.

The bottom line is, external graphics with Nvidia chips inside are happening, something that might be the future for a number of Nvidia add-in-board partners who might end up selling external graphics, as the desktop graphics market dwindles. EVGA, Gainward, Asus, MSI, XFX, TGT and other usual suspects might resort to selling notebook external cards.

This sounds like a decent model for the future and one of the ways AIBs could maintain their revenues at reasonable levels. Also, bear in mind that AMD pioneered external graphics three years ago with XGP and it is still in the game. Sony’s Vaio Z, introduced last May, offers optional AMD external graphics via Thunderbolt.

In case an Asus laptop that caught your eye has the letter G in the name, it means it’s aimed at gamers. To make sure that the series is as diverse as possible, Asus offers 15.6’’, 16’’ and 17.3’’ devices. We tested the fastest model – the G74SX, which comes with Nvidia GTX 560M graphics and Core i7 2630QM processor.

Asus’ Republic of Gamers G74SX laptop comes with a large 17.3’’ display. If however you think it is too large or pricey, you can get the same CPU and GPU in a 15.6’’ package, going by the name of G53SX.

Enthusiasts probably know this by now, but we’ll repeat it for our readers just in case. Nvidia launched GTX 570M and GTX 580M graphics cards a few days ago. While they are faster than the GTX 560M, you’ll see that the latter holds its own quite nicely.

The Intel Core i7-2630M quad core processor runs at up to 2.9GHz in turbo and it complements Nvidia’s GTX 560M (3GB of GDDR5) graphics well.

This 17 incher additionally has 12GB of DDR3 and it’s pretty much evident that it will handle multimedia. The real question of course is whether it will allow for smooth gaming at its native resolution of 1920x1080.

The G74SX’ monitor boasts refresh rate of 120Hz, meaning it supports 3D and Asus gifts users Nvidia’s Shutter glasses as well. The displays has quality backlighting, which is a must since the Shutter glasses tend to make the picture a tad darker.

Of course, 3D is not everyone’s cup of tea and we’d advise you to try it out first before choosing a laptop with a 3D display. In case viewing 3D causes fatigue or discomfort, Asus offers a G74SX with a classic display, which as you can imagine is a bit cheaper.

Asus G74SX comes with two 750GB hard drives. The battery is an 8-cell, but it goes without saying that longer gaming sessions will require an outlet. Naturally, it’s to be expected with such devices.

The Asus G74SX configuration we tested is priced at about €1900, but it may end up cheaper depending on the configuration. You can find it listed here.

With its G74SX, Asus bundles a nice backpack with the ROG logo, a GX800 gaming mouse (3200dpi) and Nvidia Shutter glasses.

Specification for Asus G74S

Asus G74SX measures 32.5 x 42.0 x 2.09 ~ 6.20 cm (WxDxH). It is 2.09cm thick on the front and 6.20cm at the back. It weighs in at 4.28kg which really speaks volumes about its mobility. Thankfully, the backpack should take care of that.

As far as looks go, we really liked the G74SX. Top of the laptop is coated with a soft-touch matte surface, which copes well with fingerprints and helps the laptop feel more robust.

Front side and back side

The only thing of interest on the front is the Power Indicator. Once the laptop is closed, the blinking LED shows it’s in Sleep mode.

Unlike the front, back of the laptop looks as mean as it gets. The back of the laptop is about 4cm thicker than the front.

If you look closer in the outlet, you’ll notice that the heatsink is mainly positioned on the right side of the device. We noticed that the right side of the laptop gets much hotter, meaning that CPU and GPU are probably on the right.

Bottom and the Battery

The bottom of fashined from rugged black plastics and it is possible to replace hard drives or memory, which is probably a good idea since the laptop is aimed at the enthusiast crowd. Unlike classic batteries, Asus G74SX uses a square one.

We’re talking about a Li-Ion A42-G74 eight-cell battery with 5200mAh, 74W. Of course, if you’re planning long gaming sessions, you should make sure you’re near an electricity outlet because the battery won’t last longer than an hour when under full load. Classic operation with WLAN on may last up to 2.5 hours whereas turning off WLAN and decreasing brightness will result in 3.5 hours of endurance.

G74SX comes with two Seagate hard disks (ST9750420AS) each with 750GB. As you can see, they’re easily acessible by removing the plastic cover.

G74SX has four memory slots. Three are populated by three Samsung 4GB memory modules (PC3 - 10600S; M471B5273DH0-CH9) while one was left free for future upgrades.

The GTX 560M is located top right, whereas the Core i7 2630QM is just around the center, above the memory. GPU and CPU heatsinks have two heatpipes each. The picture below shows where the GPU cooler’s heatsink starts.

The following picture shows that the laptop has two fans.

Display and 3D Vision

If you’re used to 13’’ or 15’’ laptops, the G74SX will seem like a monster. However, we must admit that we enjoyed the 17.3’’ 1920x1080 display and we really didn’t miss our desktop rigs.

Asus offers a few diplays to choose from with the G74SX. However, we could not have wished for a better one as our model had a 120Hz matte display with quality backlighting. There were almost no reflections on this display when we were playing games outside, on sunny day. The picture below says enough.

Strong lighting is a must for 3D displays with Nvidia 3D shutter glasses, since the shutter glasses come with dark lens. G74SX’ picture quality is pretty good. Viewing angles are good as well.

Nvidia 3D Vision requires an IR emitter that transmits the signal from the laptop to the glasses. The emitter is integrated into Asus G74SX’s display frame. You can actually see it on the picture above – just a few centimeters to the left from the camera.

Of course, the shutter glasses require power, which is supplied by the integrated battery. The glasses are charged via the mini-USB cable, which can be performed while you’re using them. One charge can take days.

When you put the shutter glasses on, 3D Vision will make sure that the user gets a feeling of depth, i.e. the third dimension. 3D Vision will run fine with most games – all you need to do is turn on stereoscopic 3D in the driver. Nvidia 3D Vision works only in full screen mode.

The driver also has a list of compatible games.

Keyboard

Since this is a 17.3’’ device, Asus had more than 30x40cm to weave its magic. The keyboard and touchpad placement is good and definitely pleasing to the eye. Gamers will feel at home in no time, WASD keys, as well as others used for gaming, are quite responsive while the arrow keys are thankfully not smaller than the rest.

The keyboard is really tough and will not bend during operation. All the keys are quiet at a press, except for the spacebar. The keyboard is angled at 5 degrees, which makes typing pretty comfortable and should help with posture as well.

The palm rest is made of soft-touch (rubber coated surface) that won’t attract dust and definitely feels good.

The keyboard is backlit, which gets in very handy when gaming in the dark with 3D glasses. The On/Off key is above the keyboard to the right.

Touchpad

The Sentelic Sensing Pad touchpad is large but doesn’t feature multi touch support. As you can see, it looks pretty nice. Left and right buttons are physically separate parts and we had to get used to the fact that they go in pretty deep at a press. The buttons are quiet.

LED lamps (power indicator, battery charge indicator, drive activity indicator i bluetooth / wireless indicator) are placed to the left of the touchpad.

Connectivity and Ports

As you can see from the picture below, the power-in (DC) connector is on the right side of the laptop. The same side holds one HDMI and one VGA out, Realtek Gigabit LAN port (RJ-45), one USB 2 and one USB 3.0 port. The G74SX comes with a 4-in-one card reader (SD/ MS/ MS Pro/ MMC).

Intel's Core i7-2630QM is a quad core Sandy Bridge based CPU that can handle 8 threads, delifering more performance in threaded applications. Turbo Boost can dynamically change clocks from base 2GHz to 2.6GHz (full load on all four cores), 2.8GHz (full load on two cores) or 2.9GHz (one core).

The QM moniker with Sandy Bridge series means it’s a quad core CPU, whereas the seventh letter/number, which is ‘0’ in this case (i7-2630QM), denotes TDP. Namely, ‘0’ means 45W or 35W CPUs, ‘9’ is 25W TDP whereas ‘7’ stands for 17W models. The exception for now is the 2635QM, which also comes with 45W TDP.

Sandy Bridge architecture came after Arrandale and, along with many other optimizations, comes with integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000.

Turbo Boost 2.0 handles integrated graphics as well. In the case of 2630QM, graphics card can overclock from 650MHz to 1100MHz. The Core i7-2635QM is very similar in this respect, although it can boost graphics up to 1200MHz. Of course, Intel’s new graphics cards’ performance is much better than the HD Graphics from Arrandale.

However, the G74SX does not use Intel’s integrated graphics. It comes with Nvidia’s GTX 560M. Nvidia Optimus is not included, which means the GTX 560M runs all the time.

As CPUZ shows, the 2630QM is placed in rPGA socket, while the 2635QM uses BGA QC socket.

The following screenshot shows that the Core i7-2630QM has 4 cores and 8 threads. This 17 incher additionally has 12GB of DDR3 memory.

CPU Performance

We had to repeat the tests several times because results varied. Namely, Turbo Boost didn’t always overclock the cores to same values. We only had the laptop for two days so we couldn’t figure out why this was so, but gaming tests revealed that all four cores run at 2.6GHz so we didn’t worry much about Cinebench.

HDD Performance

Asus G74SX has two 750GB HDDS, although we’d rather have seen an SSD drive running the system. That’s not to say that the drives are slow and HD Tune results rate read speeds at almost 100MB/s.

The GTX 560M with 3GB GDDR5 of memory is a high-end laptop graphics card that will offer similar performance to that of the older GTX 480. The GTX 560M is based on the GF116, which is in fact an optimized GF100 (Geforce GTX 480M).

The G74SX does not use Intel’s integrated graphics. It comes with Nvidia’s GTX 560M. Nvidia Optimus is not included, which means the GTX 560M runs all the time.

Having a 120Hz monitor is a shame to waste but note that 3D gaming is not possible with all games in 1920x1080, simply because 3D tends to double graphics requirements.

Gaming in classic 2D mode will not be a problem, not even at 1920x1080. However, some more demanding games will require turning off effects and antialiasing.

Dirt 2

Asus G74SX instantly got ahead of the pack of slower laptops we included in the table. With graphics settings at ‘High’, G74SX outran Alienware’s Mx14, which has Nvidia GT 555M graphics.

Asus G74SX will run just fine at 1920x1080 with 'Ultra‘ settings as well.

Metro 2033

Metro 2033 allowed for gaming at native 1920x1080 with settings at ‘Normal Quality’, although we did turn off tessellation and DOF.

Crysis 2 / DirectX 9

Crysis 2 was easily playable in DX9 version.

Crysis 2 / DirectX 11

We downloaded the DX 11 patch and high res textures, which decreased the result you see in the table abowe by only a few frames. The real work for GTX 560M begins when Crysis 2 is ran in 3D.

'High' setttings at 1920x1080 coupled with 3D resulted in only 24-27fps. Once we turned on DX11 and high resolution textures, we saw that about 1.6GB was used in the graphics card‘s memory (DirectX 9 took up 1.23GB). All in all, memory was not a bottleneck as the GTX 560M we had on our tests boasts 3GB.

Crysis 2 / DirectX 9 in 3D

Crysis 2 / DirectX 11 in 3D

Asus G74SX is a gaming laptop with Nvidia’s GTX 560M and Intel’s Core i7-2630QM, so this means that the device needs quality cooling and Asus did quite well in this department.

The two fans are not exactly quiet in idle mode, which isn’t great. You’ll hear the airflow, constantly. On the other hand, temperatures are kept in check quite nicely. The hard drive crackle is only occasional and unobtrusive.

The part around WASD keys is quite the coolest region on the upper part of the laptop – it can go up to 31°C. The right palm rest will go up to 30 °C whereas the left side is always much cooler. The hottest part is from the arrow keys upwards, towards the display, up to 35 °C.

It almost goes without saying that you will not use Asus G74S from your lap, be it because you’ll need a mouse or the heat on the right side. In fact, on the right-top part temperatures can hit up to 45°C.

The highest temperature we measured from the large air outlet was 66°C. Note however that this was during long gaming tests.

The following screenshots show that components are pretty cool in idle, but that temperatures rise under load.

The masses may like playing casual games on their cellphones but real enthusiasts and gamers will definitely know how to appreciate the G74SX. We’re talking about Asus’ latest gaming laptop that boasts 17.3’’ non-reflective display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Thanks to the display and Nvidia’s GTX 560M 3GB graphics card, gaming in 3D is possible as well.

As far as the design goes, the G74SX has some really nice looks, although it is a rather bukly beast. While we’re aware it is a matter of personal taste, we thought that its looks complement the purpose quite well.

The laptop has a large cooler with two fans and while cooling is good, the fans are pretty loud in idle mode. Furthermore, it doesn’t come with Optimus technology, which means that Nvidia’s discrete graphics core is running all the time. As you would expect, it takes a toll on battery life so the battery will provide a bit more than 2 hours for surfing.

Gaming performance is pretty good considering the display’s native resolution of 1920x1080. This is definitely the fastest laptop we’ve tested so far. In case you’re not keen on rushing purchase, it may be wise to wait a bit and see whether Asus straps the G74S with the GTX 570M or GTX 580M, which should definitely boost 3D gaming performance at 1920x1080.

The Asus G74SX configuration we tested is priced at about €1900, but it may end up cheaper depending on the configuration. You can find it listed here.

It looks like that MSI will use Cebit to show off numerous products based on AMD's Brazos platform and the company will formally announce a bunch of products based on the new platform. Of course, we will see the full lineup at Cebit once it starts next week but for now we at least have some details.

First in line is the MSI CR650, which has been announced a while back. This 15.6-incher is running on a 1.6GHz E-350 APU with AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics. According to details known so far, it will sell at around €399 to €499 depending on the configuration. The next in line is the netbook variant, the Wind U270. Packing the same APU as the previous 15.6-incher this 12-incher should sell at around €399.

The one that caught our eye is the X370, an X-Slim Series 13-incher based on the same platform. Of course, thin and light, as well as sleek design come at a price so this one will be selling at €599 in Europe. In addition to notebooks, netbooks and thin-and-lights, MSI will also show a Wind Top AE2050 All-in-One with the same specs. This 20-incher shjould also sell at €599 according to our info.

Last but definitely not least, MSI will introduce the Wind 110W tablet based on AMD's C-50 APU. We still don't have all the details but we do know that it will feature 3G, GPS and HDMI output. It will surely be interesting to see all those products running on AMD's Brazos platform so stay tuned for our Cebit coverage.